


It's past bedtime for obedient little girls

by aryastark_valarmorghulis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Implied Sexual Content, Love/Hate, References to Canon-Typical Violence, Second War with Voldemort, Slytherin Common Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aryastark_valarmorghulis/pseuds/aryastark_valarmorghulis
Summary: 1998, Slytherin common room, late night, conversations about loyalty and lies and truths
Relationships: Daphne Greengrass/Pansy Parkinson
Comments: 19
Kudos: 32





	It's past bedtime for obedient little girls

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Kattlupin and Chromat1cs for the lovely beta work and, as usual, to shessocold for everything.  
> Warnings: references to canon-typical violence, unhealthy relationship dynamics, implied rough sex between 18 years old girls.

“It’s past bedtime for obedient little girls.” Her voice is, as always, low and clear, vitriol dripping like the residues of a dark curse oozing its sour stink, poisoning the air. 

Daphne doesn’t turn to look at her, gaze fixed to the embers slowly dying in the stone fireplace, but she stops chewing on her nails at once.

“If I meet one, I’ll tell her, then,” she answers, hoping Pansy will leave her alone and go back to whatever she does at night.  
There’s never a moment to be alone in this bloody castle, everyone is always watching, listening, whispering, reporting, plotting: the walls and staircases and tapestries have more eyes and ears than the portraits crowding them. All the teachers but the Carrows are like angry hounds towards Slytherins. She is under scrutiny more than most: must look out for everyone else _and_ from her own House classmates _and_ Pansy.

Pansy comes near, and all the hope for a peaceful night of brooding and distressing and grieving for their lost innocence is gone. She sits balanced on the armrest of the fluffy sofa, far enough so they don’t touch each other but near enough that Daphne is aware of the proximity of her body - Pansy has a talent for making her body known, for persuading Daphne to look, to reach out, to shape her desires. 

And indeed Daphne can’t avoid glancing at the outline of her legs, dangling idly, wrapped in that long velvety dressing gown that conceals the softness of Pansy’s smooth, bronze skin - and she really is soft, irresistible like a bowl of cream that Daphne can’t help but crave. And yet, even naked and splayed on the bed, perfect hair fanned out on the pillow, breasts rising and falling at the rhythm of shallow breaths, golden brown and glowing with sweat, Pansy never seems vulnerable - she never yields, never shows weakness.  
Daphne stares at the fire again. She doesn’t like it, how Pansy’s body is all she can think about sometimes, even more so now that she knows how it feels beneath her own body. (Hot under her hands. Demanding between her legs. Wet on her mouth. Silky between her fingers, when she pushes the short black hair away from Pansy’s lovely face. But Daphne doesn’t like to dwell about how much she wants Pansy's body - it makes her think about how much she wants _her_.)

“You weren’t in your bed,” Pansy says, tone almost accusatory - but it’s her usual tone, after all, it shouldn’t affect Daphne by now. 

And yet it does. After seven years, Pansy can play her like a charmer plays a snake. “Pretending to be worried about me? Or only disappointed I wasn’t there, ready to use at your pleasure?” 

When Daphne turns to look at her, finally, she must brace herself for the pretty picture she knew she’d find: Pansy seems unfazed, her usual sardonic expression tugging at the corners of her lovely shaped mouth, her black fringe falling annoyingly perfectly on her brow, her angular features hard and striking in the greenish glittering light. She looks creepy and ghost-like and so, so beautiful.

“More curious to see where you were. Plotted your escape yet?” Pansy’s mocking, of course, but behind mockery suspicions might be hidden those days, so Daphne laughs and scoffs like the thought of escaping never occurred to her. It did - it _does_ \- a lot. But her parents believe it’s best for her and Astoria to stay at school under Snape’s protection, and she has no other options. (If not joining the _other side_ , but even if she knew where to find them before the Death Eaters find her, it’s not an option. She has even less in common with those people than with those vulgar Carrows siblings, and anyway they’d never accept her or trust her).

“Yes, of course - and, pray tell, where do you think I would go?”

Pansy shrugs, her short hair swaying and framing her cheeks in the most lovely way. “I wouldn’t know, would I? _I_ never thought of escaping - Hogwarts is the safest place there is.”

Daphne nods dutifully. If they repeat it enough, maybe some eager first year will fall for it for a while, but at this point this is nothing but dull rhetoric that not even Pansy could truly believe. There aren’t safe places anymore, even Gringott’s has been robbed, and the Ministry is in even worse disarray. Has Hogwarts ever been a safe place? It looked like an impregnable fortress back then, to her wide-eyed eleven-year-old, but it seems like a lifetime has passed since. 

“Many parents withdrew their children from school, though,” Daphne adds, conversationally, if only to see if it’s possible to break Pansy’s facade of unwavering obedience - because it must be a facade, mustn’t it? No one can be so blind and righteous in front of the obvious inadequacy of so many of Hogwarts’ staff members: from Quirrell to Lockhart, from Dumbledore to the beasts and imposters he hired, from that irresponsible brute Hagrid to the Carrow siblings. Really, nobody cares about the students’ education or safety, not even Snape - and if a barely adequate student like Daphne understands it, then a Prefect like Pansy must, too. 

“Not many Slytherins, though,” is the quick reply. _Because we’re better than them_ goes unsaid but hangs clear in the air between them, thickening the narrow space with a hint of doubt. Pansy loves to play this game, where she drills everyone and prods until she finds some fault in their loyalty; but no matter how many faults she found in Daphne’s, she never reported her. _Yet_. Probably believes Daphne too cowardly to act on them - which is true.

“Tracey left,” Daphne says.  
The empty bed in their dorm has been plaguing her since September - Tracey, quick-handed Tracey who sold her perfectly written notes, stingy Tracey who always forgot her purse when they went to Hogsmeade, reserved Tracey who smoked her strange smelling cigarettes behind the greenhouses and smiled whenever a teacher asked Daphne a question and she could answer correctly. Tracey, their friend, vanished into nothing since last summer and never talked about, wiped from their existence like she was never there, for six long years. 

But she existed, and Daphne remembers - Pansy must remember, too.

But Pansy is Pansy, so she only laughs, the sound cutting and bitter and unexpected and not at all happy. “I didn’t realise you were pining for her and plotting your escape to find her - it’s so romantic it makes me want to get drunk with a bottle of Draught of Living Death”

Of course, _of course_ , that’s the angle she chooses to avoid talking about the real issue - Pansy wants to rile her up, shag angrily, and then pretend all is well and good until Daphne starts to brood again. Then, rinse and repeat in a seemingly endless cycle.

“Oh, don’t be jealous,” Daphne says, and she even reaches out to pat Pansy’s knee over the soft, expensive velvet, “you know my tastes are far worse than fancying Tracey.” 

Pansy looks down at her, dark eyes unfathomable and hard and beautiful. “I don’t even want to know what’s reeling in that messy mind of yours,” she leans in, lowering her voice like she’s whispering a secret, and Daphne, Merlin help her, holds her breath in anticipation. “But you don’t have to _like_ watching kids being hit with the Cruciatus Curse: you just have to _do_ it.”

Daphne exhales, a heavy hand squeezing her guts, the usual undercurrent wave of nausea that accompanies it rising up to her throat. “I _do_ it.”

Pansy smiles, showing her perfect white teeth, sharp like a snake, her sudden seriousness gone. “I was sure you enjoyed a bit of... roughhouse.”

Daphne shakes her head, disgusted that Pansy has the nerve to compare their fucking to punishing kids with the Cruciatus Curse, and dismissing the latter as _roughhousing._ Nevertheless, her cheeks feel warm.

“Or is it only to comply with me? That’d be sweet-”

At this, Daphne cuts her off. “It might come as a shock, but not everything in this stupid world is about _you_. Maybe I just like it rough and that’s it.” But it isn’t totally true - the truth these days is only another lie. _Maybe it's fucked up that I like being punished, maybe I believe I have something to pay for._

Pansy’s hand is suddenly stroking her neck, warm and sure, and her thumb brushes Daphne’s lips - she bites at it only to hear a hiss, but she’s fully aware Pansy’s winning this argument because she can cast the most perfectly executed charm: the spell that makes Daphne feel good, even for a fleeting moment. It’s worked since the beginning, since the world started to mould in a dark, twisted place and Pansy started to flirt - or to secure Daphne’s loyalties, who even knows. Who even cares. 

Pansy slides in her lap, kisses her lightly, barely a hint of her sweet tongue, enough for Daphne to chase her mouth, and then rises up. “Come on,” she says, adjusting the sash of her gown, a dark glint in her eyes. “We can do it on good old Tracey’s empty bed in her honour if it makes you feel better.” 

It does.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](https://aryastark-valarmorghulis.tumblr.com/)!


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